Ron Steens

As a 19-year-old, Ron Steens, then representing Rotterdam side Victoria, joined the Dutch preliminary selection for the 1972 Olympics. He never played in Munich, but made his international début the following year. The Dutch team won the World Cup that year, with Steens scoring one goal in the match against Belgium. In the 1974/75 season, Steens joined the new fusion team HC Klein Zwitserland (The Hague). Together with his brother Tim Steens and forward Ties Kruize, he led the club through a dominant period in Dutch domestic hockey. Between 1977 and 1984, the team won eight national titles. The team also played five consecutive finals of the European Club Champions Cup (1979-1983), winning in 1979 and 1981.

As an international, Steens played in two Olympics, with a fourth place in Montréal and a sixth in LA 1984, missing the 1980 Games as the Dutch hockey federation decided to boycott that edition. In all, Steens won 167 caps, including 86 as the captain. While he wasn’t selected for the national team from 1981 to 1983, he made a total of 43 international goals. As he struggled with injuries from 1985, Steens then became manager of HCKZ for several years, with Kruize as the head coach, but they could not continue the club’s glory years.

Outside of hockey, Steens worked in various management positions in finance and organisational consultancy. He also worked as a part-time sports marketing teacher at a college in Breda.